People have been taking other people's shiat for a LONG time now. If this was a Toyota Corolla you might get it back. This is a gem that was presented to the queen of England (who was the state leader of your country at the time, whether you like that or not) and set in a crown. It is now one of the symbols of state of a nation that ruled the whole of India for more than 100 years.

You can pretend that it rightfully belongs to you now if you really MUST, but you don't have any more claim to it than anyone else India. Some serf dug the thing out of the farking ground 600 years ago and promptly got bludgeoned to shiat by his lord or mine owner or whatever, and the thing changed hands by invasion and war for a few hundred years till the brits took it and put it in a hat because it was really big. It hasn't been in your country in almost 200 years, and for 400 before that its ownership was murky due to all the people getting murdered to seize it on a regular basis.

Nobody has clean hands in this, and the best you can do is say, "Well it was from OUR ground 600 years back," which nobody farking cares about except for you because you have a vested interest in people thinking it should be yours.

Reuters, when I click a link about a big ass diamond set into the royal crown, I want to see a picture of that big ass diamond, not David Cameron channeling Omar from The Wire. That said, sorry France, you're not getting the Hope Diamond back either. Should've put some heavier security around the French Blue.

hitlersbrain:You can grow diamonds pretty cheap in a lab. They are actually quite worthless. The only way to tell which ones were dug out of the ground by some dying African slave worker is by looking for the imperfections that are hard to fake. The more perfect the diamond, the less value it has.

/people be chumps.

True enough. If the DeBeers cartel didn't have its boot on the throat of the diamond supply, that rock would be worth less than what Drew gave the copyright trolls in that lawsuit.

You can grow diamonds pretty cheap in a lab. They are actually quite worthless. The only way to tell which ones were dug out of the ground by some dying African slave worker is by looking for the imperfections that are hard to fake. The more perfect the diamond, the less value it has.

r1niceboy:Britain could always say, "We accept this gem, and the curry, in payment for your country not being ruled by men in pajamas, being a literate society, a democracy, giving your educated sons and daughters a place to earn a decent living, and less of a third world shiathole than would otherwise have been the case. You're welcome!"

You do realize that India fell into shiatholism because the EIC raped it blind, right? Bengal was a top producer of cotton goods, for example, before the EIC got ahold of it - and got turned into a complete importer of sloth by the EIC taking a flame-thrower to the local economy One o0f the things that allowed Britain to be the premier commercial empire was because it was yanking stuff out of India for cheap and then selling the largess at top-shelf prices. Educating the Indians wasn't something done to help the Indians, but because the British needed more clerks than they could reasonably expect to ship over from Dorset. and the idea was educate the Indians to show them that they were inferior to the British, so the Indians would serve as grateful inferiors to Britain. It would be like saying Afro-Americans should be glad the Southern gentry taught them Western agricultural practices. As far as democracy, the British fought tooth and nail to deny India any sort of democratic process. When Canada was getting Dominion status (and the Americans had had local assemblies while colonies), Britain was actively tightening restrictions in India. At best, it was "you can be selected for a minority of seats in this completely toothless assembly that the Viceroy won't even pretend to listen to". Number of Indian seats in Parliament? Zero. Number of local, democratic assemblies in India with deomcratically elected officials? Zero. Anything India got from Britain was in spite of, not because of the British.

Britain could always say, "We accept this gem, and the curry, in payment for your country not being ruled by men in pajamas, being a literate society, a democracy, giving your educated sons and daughters a place to earn a decent living, and less of a third world shiathole than would otherwise have been the case. You're welcome!"

cretinbob:"The right answer is for the British Museum and other cultural institutions to do exactly what they do, which is to link up with other institutions around the world to make sure that the things which we have and look after so well are properly shared with people around the world."

I'm OK with this

I've seen the Elgin marbles, and I've seen the current state of the original from which they were cast. I'm 100% okay with the British Museum hanging on to a great deal of the world's cultural heritage.

The whole theft/return idea is ridiculous on a massive scale. Almost everything that has a history was essentially 'stolen' by this definition. Is India/Egypt/Greece planning on a complete audit of their entire national possessions to establish original ownership and whether they were legally transferred and then going to return them? No because that would be STUPID.

Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

I'm all for acknowledging our forebears mistakes and making up where we can, but Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, didn't go through all that trouble during the First Sikh War smuggling the Koh-i-Noor out just to have it handed right back.

So you don't believe in "returnism" but you believe in stealing. Cool ethics bro!

THIS. Even if you're not giving it back, at least try and pretend you understand you stole it. FFS. I can understand why you wouldn't want to return it, politics is a dirty game, but you farked up, admit it and move on.

Funny thing, HE didn't steal it. He wasn't even farking alive when it happened. So no, he really doesn't need to understand that.

This is exactly like the blacks demanding reparations for slavery, in the United States. fark you. You weren't a slave, so unless you are going to do forced labor for the next few years, you aren't getting any reparations. Wellfare I guess isn't a reparation.

kbronsito:I've never been to London... is there an entrance fee to go into the museum? Maybe people who had their crap stolen from them should have it waive by showing their passports. Because it's a dick move to steal someone's stuff but its an even more dickish move to charge them money to look at it.

There is no entrance fee, but there is a large urn just inside the entrance for those who choose to give a recommended donation. It's quite interesting to see as it has money from all around the world inside. I doubt that it is emptied often.

As for returning their treasures, India is free to wait along with Greece and Egypt. The advantage of having built history's greatest empire is the legacy of stolen treasures from all over the planet and building the British Museum which is surely the world's greatest monument to theft on a grand scale. It may not be right, but at least it's all on display inside a genuinely stunning building for the world to see.

Besides, I can't imagine any sort of genuine global attempt to return property and land taken in the past through force and treachery without the lot of us returning to the Old Stone Age. There comes a point in which you really must stop fighting battles in retaliation of injustices committed against your long-dead ancestors against the other side's descendants born years or even centuries after the fact.

hitlersbrain:You can grow diamonds pretty cheap in a lab. They are actually quite worthless. The only way to tell which ones were dug out of the ground by some dying African slave worker is by looking for the imperfections that are hard to fake. The more perfect the diamond, the less value it has.

/people be chumps.

Diamonds weren't even fashionable until the 1800's. Given enough synthetic production, they'll become just as worthless once again, eventually.

A bunch of years ago Egypt was sending a guy around to retrieve all of the items that came out of the pyramids on the grounds that since the country was now stable for the long-term the excuse for holding it safely until they got their act together wouldn't fly.

"The right answer is for the British Museum and other cultural institutions to do exactly what they do, which is to link up with other institutions around the world to make sure that the things which we have and look after so well are properly shared with people around the world."

pstudent12:Treygreen13:Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

White guilt.

Treygreen13:You are so riiight. White guilt ! That's it!

The multiple holocausts, mass starvations concentration camps, mutilations and destruction have nothing to do with it, it's a little guilt...much like the Nazis too are not revered and celebrated because of ..white guilt getting in the way. Suuuch a brilliant clarifying observation....

Well that's exactly what you're pushing.

You want people who weren't even alive at the time of said atrocities to feel bad about them as if it were their fault simply on the basis of the fact they're white and therefore must be complicit. That's what your earlier spiel was about, wasn't it? "Look how nasty your ancestors were, don't you feel bad about it? You should, because you're white and a descendent of those horrible people. Every privilege and advantage you have is built on the back of slaughtered brown people. You should grovel in shame."

There's no reason British citizens of any colour born after the end of the Raj should feel any guilt for what happened during it. There's no reason why Japanese born after WWII should feel any guilt for what happened during it. There's no reason Africans born after the end of slavery should feel guilt about their ancestors selling their own into slavery.

It's all very wide-eyed college liberal and extremely biblical, but it's stupid, and non-productive, and frankly it makes you look like even more of a moron than your awful writing style.

The local Rajah gave that stone to Queen Vicki of his own free will. With the help of a couple of British armies, of course, but those silly wogs couldn't be expected to do anything for themselves, now could they?

And THIS is why I recommend people visiting London make the British Museum a primary stop. Forget the London Eye, London Bridge, London Tower, Big Ben etc. Hit the British Museum and maybe the Tate Modern.

Thousands of years of shameless plundering of other's cultures makes for a pretty awesome museum!

This text is now purple:Somacandra: The moral of the story: colonialism sucks ass (the bad kind), no matter how hard Dinesh D'Souza tries to polish that turd.

It's hard to complain too hard about British colonialism. They tended to leave places in better condition than they found them.

\Now Belgian colonialism...

Exactly. Most of the places the Brits colonized would have zero infrastructure if they hadn't been there. I get tired of former colonies, particularly on the African continent, blaming all of their problems on the West.

oldfarthenry:"The diamond had been set in the crown of the current Queen Elizabeth's late mother."

The old broad is dead - what does she care? Give the goddamn thing back!

The article is imprecise. The kiN is set in the Queen-Consort's crown. The Queen Mother was simply the last woman to wear it, being the last Queen Consort. It wasn't her personal jewelry. Supposedly, the thing is cursed, but only if you are a man. So, by putting it in the Queen Consort's crown was supposed to insure it would never be worn by a man again.

So you don't believe in "returnism" but you believe in stealing. Cool ethics bro!

THIS. Even if you're not giving it back, at least try and pretend you understand you stole it. FFS. I can understand why you wouldn't want to return it, politics is a dirty game, but you farked up, admit it and move on.

So you don't believe in "returnism" but you believe in stealing. Cool ethics bro!

THIS. Even if you're not giving it back, at least try and pretend you understand you stole it. FFS. I can understand why you wouldn't want to return it, politics is a dirty game, but you farked up, admit it and move on.

Funny thing, HE didn't steal it. He wasn't even farking alive when it happened. So no, he really doesn't need to understand that.

This is exactly like the blacks demanding reparations for slavery, in the United States. fark you. You weren't a slave, so unless you are going to do forced labor for the next few years, you aren't getting any reparations. Wellfare I guess isn't a reparation.

You are comparing apples and oranges. This is a physical item that was stolen and can be given back. A better comparison would be things the Nazis stole during WW2 from other countries now being in Germany's possessions. The other countries ask for them back and Germany says "F*ck you, we don't believe in returnism".

So who do you propose the diamond be given back to? The people who stole it, then gave it to Britain willingly?

How would Indians benefit from its return?This. It sounds like typical grandstanding by some idiot politician. I suspect the average Indian laborer would rather have their elected politician get some money to their respective village so they can buy a water pump and/or have regular sanitation system.

Not some dumb rock that will sit in another museum in Mumbai or Dehli that the peasants will never visit.

And your own country has a history of the exact same at the least. History is the word however.

I WILL NOT feel guilty about stuff done while my ancestors worked for basic bread down a mine in Northern England. Sorry, I just will not. I especially will not listen to demands from people who are themselves rich and powerful off the backs of poverty stricken masses in their own countries, who they treat abominably, as they try to deflect with nationalist tripe.

Fallout Boy:Lunchlady: Fallout Boy: Lunchlady: pstudent12: Treygreen13:Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

White guilt.

Treygreen13:You are so riiight. White guilt ! That's it!

The multiple holocausts, mass starvations concentration camps, mutilations and destruction have nothing to do with it, it's a little guilt...much like the Nazis too are not revered and celebrated because of ..white guilt getting in the way. Suuuch a brilliant clarifying observation....

Alright, fine I feel frigin awesome about the atrocities committed by the West from 1600 to roughly 1950. Best thing that we white folk have ever done!

Seriously, what would you have us do? Spend untold trillions making things better? Putting a band-aid on things and saying, "Yay all fixed!". Your moralizing would be admirable if it wasn't so pointless.

Well, returning the diamond, and putting a lid on your condescending biatch attitude would be a start. Actually, it would be an end, too, since no country has seriously demanded reparations and all they have asked for is to bury the hatchet with small requests such as this one. But let's make a giant deal out of it as if this small gesture of conciliation will somehow eventually lead to Europe having to pay back all the monetary damages of four centuries adjusted for inflation.

They're not getting the diamond back and they know it. This request is for the benefit of the Indian politician's constituents, just like Argentina and the Falklands, Teapartiers and illegals, and Armenians with Turkey.

Everyone knows this, so let's stop the moralizing and the cultural relativity and be pragmatic about it.

I wonder why you never ask why the British will never return the diamond. Is the political face and the fear that it will be interpreted as a sign of weakness on the part of the British politicians worth defendin ...

As described above the British were pretty much the only people who got the diamond and didn't murder the current owner for it. Hell "India" was a geographic term in the 1800's, the only people who have any claim whatsoever for the diamond are the descendants of the Sultan who gave it as a gift, not the rest of modern India. Hell given the circumstances, the diamond has more significance in British history than what we currently call India.

Britain didn't steal that diamond from "India." They took it from the last of a long line of ruling cutthroats who had stolen it back and forth across Asia for centuries. The East India Company got legal title to it along with the rest of the Singh families kingdom in Punjab, in exchange for Duleep Singh living a comfortable exile in Great Britain pllus 50,000 pounds a year. And the East India Company gave it to Queen Victoria and her heirs. The British royal family are just about the only owners who DIDN'T steal it.

Fallout Boy:Lunchlady: pstudent12: Treygreen13:Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

White guilt.

Treygreen13:You are so riiight. White guilt ! That's it!

The multiple holocausts, mass starvations concentration camps, mutilations and destruction have nothing to do with it, it's a little guilt...much like the Nazis too are not revered and celebrated because of ..white guilt getting in the way. Suuuch a brilliant clarifying observation....

Alright, fine I feel frigin awesome about the atrocities committed by the West from 1600 to roughly 1950. Best thing that we white folk have ever done!

Seriously, what would you have us do? Spend untold trillions making things better? Putting a band-aid on things and saying, "Yay all fixed!". Your moralizing would be admirable if it wasn't so pointless.

Well, returning the diamond, and putting a lid on your condescending biatch attitude would be a start. Actually, it would be an end, too, since no country has seriously demanded reparations and all they have asked for is to bury the hatchet with small requests such as this one. But let's make a giant deal out of it as if this small gesture of conciliation will somehow eventually lead to Europe having to pay back all the monetary damages of four centuries adjusted for inflation.

They're not getting the diamond back and they know it. This request is for the benefit of the Indian politician's constituents, just like Argentina and the Falklands, Teapartiers and illegals, and Armenians with Turkey.

Everyone knows this, so let's stop the moralizing and the cultural relativity and be pragmatic about it.

NightOwl2255:you are a puppet: SERIOUSLY THOUGH, as a man of Indian descent...

I'm 1/256 Indian (Cherokee). Sure, it's not much, but I did get $2000 a year for college, and I can get free medical care and medicine if I want to go to the Indian clinic.

/Feather, not Ruby.

That's really retarded that that's allowed. I think I'm like 1/64 Cherokee - I've seen my family's records on that and a picture of her, but don't remember the number of generations. It's just silly, though - I'm white.

The US must pay every African American many millions of dollars in retribution because some Dutch traders decided to bring over some long removed ancestor. Which in turn gave todays African American a much better standard of living than if their Great Great Great Grandfather had stayed in Africa.

/Grandpa could have stayed in Africa and now his descendants could all be dying of Aids

pstudent12:Oh wait, I almost forgot, this is too funny. The benevolent, bumbling, monty python reciting, good, fair minded British, in Africa (which compared to India wasn't even all that important to them but they still did this):

Seems that castration, burning suspects alive, and ass-rape with broken bottles was a favorite counter-insurgency technique for British troops in Kenya:

"Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening teams whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather intelligence for military operations, and as court evidence." At the time, the British government sought to circumvent international accords. Forced labour was constantly imposed in the camps. Kenya's defence minister had said of the use of detainee labour: "We are slave traders and the employment of our slaves are, in this instance, by the Public Works Department."

Say, about about a spot of tea, old chap ? Now about those Belgians, can you believe what they did ? We only made our places so much better than we found them....

It was no worse than what the Africans did to each other. the british were just a bit more organized, and to be fair, they were results-oriented. Thye stopped reprisals when the provocations stopped. the Portoguese and the Belgians were far worse to their subjects.

'S one reason the Empire lasted so long and was so successful, you know. Ultimately, the British were, on balance, fair and just. Same with the Romans.

pstudent12:Treygreen13:Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

White guilt.

Treygreen13:You are so riiight. White guilt ! That's it!

The multiple holocausts, mass starvations concentration camps, mutilations and destruction have nothing to do with it, it's a little guilt...much like the Nazis too are not revered and celebrated because of ..white guilt getting in the way. Suuuch a brilliant clarifying observation....

Alright, fine I feel frigin awesome about the atrocities committed by the West from 1600 to roughly 1950. Best thing that we white folk have ever done!

Seriously, what would you have us do? Spend untold trillions making things better? Putting a band-aid on things and saying, "Yay all fixed!". Your moralizing would be admirable if it wasn't so pointless.

So all I got out of this thread is that it is okay to steal anything because everything was at one point owned by someone else, and thus the only thing you can't steal through the Fark Logic of Deduction is the stick used by the first primate who figured out he can use it to scratch his own arsehole.

Bit'O'Gristle:And why we, as a people, put such value on pressurized carbon is beyond me. Why not just pick a coconut? Or a found beetle carapace? It's all in the value of what we say its worth. To me, diamonds are a way of saying "im giving you all my cash for a useless rock that my fiancée wants, so i keep getting bj's, so here..here is all my cash for a hunk of stupid carbon." Why not just give her a CZ or something that you won't have to pay your next 22 paychecks for? fark diamonds, they have no value to me, nor does gold, or any of that shiat. Just because greedy people say it does, doesn't make it so.

And why we, as a people, put such value on slips of paper is beyond me. Why not just pick a coconut? Or a found beetle carapace? It's all in the value of what we say its worth. To me, cash is a way of saying "im giving you all my time and effort for a useless piece of paper that my fiancée wants, so i keep getting bj's, so here..here is all my free time and energy for a shred of stupid paper." Why not just give her a square of toilet paper or something that you won't have to sacrifice all of your free time for? fark cash, it has no value to me, nor does gold, or any of that shiat. Just because greedy people say it does, doesn't make it so.

Everything is only worth what we agree it is. It's best to make your peace with it.

gaspode:The whole theft/return idea is ridiculous on a massive scale. Almost everything that has a history was essentially 'stolen' by this definition. Is India/Egypt/Greece planning on a complete audit of their entire national possessions to establish original ownership and whether they were legally transferred and then going to return them? No because that would be STUPID.

Half of their own countries only belong to them through conquest and subjugation. Why is there something special about the european conquests of the 16-19 centuries that makes that stuff 'stolen'?

Ok, you can have the diamond back. And Briaian will have back the infrastructure, the Indian cities it founded, the roads and railways, the courts, schools and universities, the English Language, the civil service and army, the democratic institutions it left in place etc etc etc.

And why we, as a people, put such value on pressurized carbon is beyond me. Why not just pick a coconut? Or a found beetle carapace? It's all in the value of what we say its worth. To me, diamonds are a way of saying "im giving you all my cash for a useless rock that my fiancée wants, so i keep getting bj's, so here..here is all my cash for a hunk of stupid carbon." Why not just give her a CZ or something that you won't have to pay your next 22 paychecks for? fark diamonds, they have no value to me, nor does gold, or any of that shiat. Just because greedy people say it does, doesn't make it so.

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

URL or we'll be forced to call shenanigans.

http://www.diamondnexus.com/round-brilliant-cut-classic-series.html

You can get a 4.91 carat synthetic diamond from them for less than 500. If you want to go comically large they offer a 16 carat diamond for $1600. Please don't do that, though. Nobody will believe you've got the scratch for a 16 carat diamond unless people think you've got a cool mil lying around just for rings.

Yeah, are we sure they're dealing in octahedral carbon diamond? The language used in their vid has more weasels than a Yorkshireman's pants. Gemesis comes out and says lab grown diamonds, Diamond Nexus talks about "the only difference is the chemistry" in their video and who knows what that means. Silicon carbide was mistaken for synthetic diamond 150 years ago and can be grown in crystals large enough to make armor.

So you don't believe in "returnism" but you believe in stealing. Cool ethics bro!

THIS. Even if you're not giving it back, at least try and pretend you understand you stole it. FFS. I can understand why you wouldn't want to return it, politics is a dirty game, but you farked up, admit it and move on.

Funny thing, HE didn't steal it. He wasn't even farking alive when it happened. So no, he really doesn't need to understand that.

This is exactly like the blacks demanding reparations for slavery, in the United States. fark you. You weren't a slave, so unless you are going to do forced labor for the next few years, you aren't getting any reparations. Wellfare I guess isn't a reparation.

You ever represented a company before? Did you personally believe the Ecto-Cooler you were selling cured cancer? Nope, but that company sure did. So you opened your mouth and said Ecto-Cooler cured cancer. And thus, when the lawsuit hit, you weren't sued as a person, the company was sued for making false statements.

That's how spokespeople work. He did not personally steal it, or he'd be in farking jail. But the country he's representing did.

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

They're not even really a big secret anymore. You can go to a website right now and for less than $500 get a rock so big and bright your girlfriend's panties will break the sound barrier hitting the ground.

URL or we'll be forced to call shenanigans.

In about 5 minutes, I found a site that makes synthetic stones. Many of the synthetics they sell must be really sloppily made, because they retail for like $15. However, a 1-karat pure carbon diamong goes for roughly $4000.

What's the point of paying $4000 for a low-quality lab diamond when a low-quality natural diamond goes for the same price? Blue Nile has a 1 carat J/SI2/fair for $3300.

You can get a 4.91 carat synthetic diamond from them for less than 500. If you want to go comically large they offer a 16 carat diamond for $1600. Please don't do that, though. Nobody will believe you've got the scratch for a 16 carat diamond unless people think you've got a cool mil lying around just for rings.

Diamond Nexus, at least last time I looked a them, sells diamond stimulants. If you look at their dispersion and hardness figures they don't line up with real diamonds. Maybe they changed their business model, but last I looked they weren't actual lab made diamonds.

Those look like cubic zirconias. CZ have always been cheap. Their "pure carbon" stuff is just as expensive as natural diamonds.

Kahabut:Walker: Kahabut: PsiChick: Walker: You are comparing apples and oranges. This is a physical item that was stolen and can be given back. A better comparison would be things the Nazis stole during WW2 from other countries now being in Germany's possessions. The other countries ask for them back and Germany says "F*ck you, we don't believe in returnism".

relcec:I wouldn't trust rogan about anything outside his area of expertise: drugs, the mma, and ancient aliens. If he says what allows apraissers to differntiate the two are organic are flawed while synthetic are perfect I'd put money on him being at least half wrong.

i take everything Joe says with a grain of salt but he's entertaining. his podcast is AWESOME.

yeah, but they didn't fight that way on the show. just head to head. i mean, conversely, 10 apaches with bow and arrow and slings and atlatls and shiat versus one gladiator would equally be a bloodbath.

phalamir:r1niceboy: Britain could always say, "We accept this gem, and the curry, in payment for your country not being ruled by men in pajamas, being a literate society, a democracy, giving your educated sons and daughters a place to earn a decent living, and less of a third world shiathole than would otherwise have been the case. You're welcome!"

You do realize that India fell into shiatholism because the EIC raped it blind, right? Bengal was a top producer of cotton goods, for example, before the EIC got ahold of it - and got turned into a complete importer of sloth by the EIC taking a flame-thrower to the local economy One o0f the things that allowed Britain to be the premier commercial empire was because it was yanking stuff out of India for cheap and then selling the largess at top-shelf prices. Educating the Indians wasn't something done to help the Indians, but because the British needed more clerks than they could reasonably expect to ship over from Dorset. and the idea was educate the Indians to show them that they were inferior to the British, so the Indians would serve as grateful inferiors to Britain. It would be like saying Afro-Americans should be glad the Southern gentry taught them Western agricultural practices. As far as democracy, the British fought tooth and nail to deny India any sort of democratic process. When Canada was getting Dominion status (and the Americans had had local assemblies while colonies), Britain was actively tightening restrictions in India. At best, it was "you can be selected for a minority of seats in this completely toothless assembly that the Viceroy won't even pretend to listen to". Number of Indian seats in Parliament? Zero. Number of local, democratic assemblies in India with deomcratically elected officials? Zero. Anything India got from Britain was in spite of, not because of the British.

See also: Why Iran hates us, and has every right to hate us, and why it is Britain's fault

The British Museum is pretty much a gallery of grand theft, but with the state of most of the countries since the end of Colonialism I doubt even 10% of that stuff would have survived today. Britain should just tell India, we're still holding onto it for you until you grow up and act responsibly enough that we can give it to you.

MythDragon:Edge: British Military with aircraft carriers, Apaches, and cluster bombs"

ha. when that show was popping, there was an episode where they gave Apache Warrior the edge over Roman Gladiator (mainly because as I recall, the bow and arrow was superior and more lethal than the gladiator's close-in weapons, but who cares.)

anywyas, there was a thread here and some dude was mega butthurt about that. he was like, "that show is BULLshiat! there is NO WAY a roman gladiator would lose to a stone age technology! no freaking way, period. I call bullshiat! Didn't they see Russell Crowe in "Gladiator"? this is bullshiat! No freaking way Russell Crowe loses to Tonto. Go watch "Gladiator", you assholes. Seriously. this is bullshiat and I'm boycotting the show FOREVER!"

I am vexed -- most considerably vexed! -- at the squawks of discontent emenating from The Raj. It is disconcerting that the Punjabs are not appreciative of Her Majefty's efforts to rehabilitate them up from their lowly station into something more noble and useful. If it isn't 'quit stealing our treasures', 'quit filling our bellies full of jackfruit' it is some other mewling of dissatisfaction without a whit of appreciation for what the Empire has accomplished for them. I strongly encourage the deployment of red-coats to straighten out these ungrateful malcontents.

Ebba dabba dooba, surley they weel geeve eet back.Yeah, How about you guys figure out how to use flush toilets, drink clean water, get the cows off the streets, stop stampeding your own people during religious parties, and kick the Muslim psychos out, first, and then we'll talk.About hiring you back as houseboy.